Ethnic Communities and
the Challenge of Aging

By: Kappu Desai

Kappu Desai describes the South Asian tradition of
multi-generation families. With regard to the problems of aging in
Ontario there is a need for collaboration between the community
and those who make public policy in the area. The new trend toward
home care for the elderly is likely to be welcomed by South
Asians.

The age at which one emigrates to a new homeland often has a major
effect on the success and ease with which the acculturation
process occurs. Those interested in aging issues are increasingly
concerned by the plight of the elderly immigrant or refugee who
leaves familiar surroundings for a new life fraught with
uncertainty, at an age at which stability and tradition are often
very important.

In this paper, however, I would like to approach the subject of
aging and immigration from a different perspective, that of the
individual who immigrated early in adulthood and who is aging in
his or her adopted home land. I will present my thoughts in a very
personal way, referring to my own Indian tradition and to the
Indo-Canadian community in the city of Toronto.

As I became more familiar with aging-related issues through my
experience at the National Advisory Council on Aging, I was struck
by the fact that the Indo-Canadian community in Toronto was
increasingly composed of people who were nearing or beyond middle
age. The presence of a large number of seniors often enriches an
ethnic community's sense of identity and provides a record of its
cultural history and traditions.

This phenomenon also poses some very challenging questions to
individual Indo-Canadians as well as to the community as a whole.
Senior members may insist that their communities allow them to
continue to function as an integral part of the community and to
fulfil personally meaningful roles. They may also demand a
reinforced sense of cultural identity, support and encouragement,
especially in situations of increased dependency.

Characteristics of the Indo-Canadian Community in
Toronto

In the 1950s only about 2,000 Indo-Canadians lived in Canada, and
most of them were Sikhs living in British Columbia. By 1971, the
number had risen to 68,000 with the majority in Ontario. In the
1986 census, 308,640 respondents across Canada gave Indo-Pakistani
as their ethnic origin, either alone or in combination with
another cultural identity.

The Indo-Canadian community of Toronto numbers about 80,000, or
2.7 per cent of that city's population, and is very heterogeneous.
Its members speak twenty languages in some eight hundred dialects,
practice ten religions, and come from a dozen countries divided
into more than thirty states and territories.

Within the Indo-Canadian community, seniors (65 and over)
constituted only 2.9 per cent of the total population in 1981. As
shown in Table 1, this is very low compared to other ethnic
groups. However, by the year 2000 the number of those over 65 will
probably increase tenfold.

Indo-Canadians and Aging: the Example of the Hindu
Community

The diversity of the Indo-Canadian community logically leads to
very different experiences of aging among the members of various
religions and cultural or linguistic groups. For historical
reasons the Hindu community has fewer extended families to provide
support for its elderly members compared to other Indo-Canadian
groups, such as the Sikhs. The latter community grew mostly
through sponsored immigration, a process that created a large
number of close-knit families. Most of the aging members of the
Hindu community, however, came to Canada in search of educational
or professional advancement and have, in order to concentrate on
their careers and personal success, neglected opportunities to
create a strong network of extended-family relationships.

It is more than likely that the next generation in this community
will be as motivated by achievement and self-realization as their
parents have been. Their primary goal will probably also be
personal success with little time or energy left for other
pursuits. This is, in many cases, a foreseeable outcome of the
acculturation process of second-generation immigrants and makes it
doubtful that these immigrants will provide as much care to their
parents as the latter expect.

Increased Importance of Religious Institutions

It is an intriguing corollary, that as their community ages, many
Indo-Canadians seem to be turning more toward religious
institutions. I see this as indicative of an identity crisis as
well as an expression of their spiritual needs. Many explain this
development by saying that they want to set an example for their
children. However, religious institutions also provide a sense of
security and a feeling of belonging. Religious pursuits also may
help people come to terms with their own mortality, a reality that
few have really been prepared to accept.

It is perhaps an integral part of the immigrant experience,
especially where immigration is voluntary, to develop feelings of
invincibility and to demonstrate overwhelming courage in facing
the challenges of the future. But immigrants too often lose sight
of the frailty and dependency that sometimes accompany aging.
Perspectives change, however, when instead of celebrating births
and marriages, we are visiting sick friends in hospital and
attending funerals.

In the past few years many new Hindu temples and Sikh "gurdwaras"
have opened in Toronto. Every subgroup seems to be devoting its
energy and money to building religious structures rather than
facilities to care for the aged. One cannot help but ask whether
the use of the limited resources of the community should not be
more diversified to respond to its members' varied needs.

Traditions of Family Care Giving in Indo-Canadian Families:
Echoes of the Past

Indo-Canadian immigrants bring with them the customs they have
acquired in their past. This culture, like all others, instils in
its members ideas of what successful aging means, of the kind of
respect due to an older member of society, and of the types of
relationships that should exist between an elderly parent and his
or her child.

When a person's expectations are not met in the adopted homeland,
difficult adjustments can become necessary and much individual and
family stress may develop. Although one cannot deny that changes
have also occurred back home, the temptation is strong to believe
that if they had remained in their own countries, they would have
experienced aging more as a normal part of life, modelling
themselves on their parents' and grandparents' behaviour. The
traditional prestige and respect owed to seniors are quite common
in India, especially outside of the large cities (Sikri and
Kurian, 1988).

Despite the impact of the acculturation process inherent in
immigration, many traditions do manage to remain alive in the
community. The extended family system still remains central to
many Indo-Canadians and has an important influence on values and
behaviour. Parental authority is often still strong, and
children's conduct is influenced by their parents. Each member of
a family considers him or herself also to be part of an extended
family as well as an independent individual. In many families,
where possible, important decisions are not made without
consultation with the whole family.

Adult Children and Their Aging Parents

Some traditions are gradually disappearing, however, under the
influence of mainstream values and material limitations. One
example involves the responsibilities of adult children toward
their elderly parents. Substantial assistance in a variety of
forms is still given to the elderly by their families, and the
elderly also provide many services both within their families and
in the rest of the community, such as giving advice, babysitting,
helping with household tasks, providing temporary housing, giving
or lending money, giving gifts, gardening, and providing
transportation.

Although families are still the main source of social support of
the elderly in the community, this support can cause stress within
the family. Most of the daily responsibilities for caring for an
older relative fall on one person, usually the wife, daughter, or
daughter-in-law. Even if other immediate family members are nearby
they often take a very limited part in the care giving. Sometimes
the younger women who are called on to fill the care giving role
are obliged give up their jobs to do so. If they do continue
working outside the home, they risk extreme fatigue or stress
because of the accumulation of their responsibilities. It is
especially difficult for adult children to devote so much of their
time and money to an aging parent when they have children of their
own.

The Maya Mruga Syndrome

Many Indo-Canadian immigrants have unrealistic expectations about
the lives they will lead in their later years. As Professor
Kanungo so aptly put it, these immigrants tend to suffer from the
"Maya Mruga" syndrome, or the great illusion that they will either
go back to India to retire or will live with their children in the
same household and that these children will take the
responsibility for meeting all their needs. For many, these
expectations have become idealistic and impractical.

On the one hand, the place one left as a child or young adult has
certainly changed and is not likely the same as one might remember
it. Even in societies where old social traditions are maintained,
such as co-residence of young and old, the preference among both
older and younger generations increasingly is toward separate
lodgings to maintain privacy and independence. The fact that most
elderly people do live in separate households in Canada is, of
course, not necessarily a sign of weakened family ties.

On the other hand, although most of us can certainly expect to
maintain close and very loving relationships with our children, we
must also look at a way of creating a community in which we can
also have physical, social, and emotional support from friends in
our own ethnic communities as well as in the mainstream
culture.

The Necessary Adjustments

The cultural heritage of Indo-Canadian seniors is an important
strength that helps us preserve our sense of self and identity as
we adjust to Canadian life. Because of the extended family
environment in which we have lived and the pride we have in
fulfilling our filial responsibilities, one cannot expect that we
will ever accept the Western old age home.

As we age, however, we may need help that our families simply
cannot supply. This may include a variety of in-home services,
opportunities for meaningful activities to create a sense of
contributing to society, seniors' residences, and drop-in centres
that are designed and administered in a culturally sensitive way.
These institutional or community-based support services are meant
to aid seniors in ways that are well adapted to their needs.

These services attempt to help seniors live independently in
partnership with their families and friends. It is recognized that
families often give the bulk of the services that elderly people
receive when they live in the community, and that this must be
facilitated and supported as much as possible. Partnerships must
be created between the private and public service sector.

As the recent studies of the National Advisory Council on Aging
have shown, older people, like everyone else, want to be
respected, to be able to make their own decisions, and not to be
denied basic needs.

Those who are planning services for "ethnic" seniors are
increasingly aware that these services must take the individual's
culture and language into account. There are often important
differences in the needs of people who have immigrated to Canada,
even from the same country or ethnic group. These differences can
be based on a number of factors, including their regional and
religious identity, the situation in their homeland when they
left, their reason for emigrating, certain characteristics of
their families, the length of time they have spent in Canada; and
whether their community is dispersed or concentrated, whether
there is a supportive social network, and whether there are ethnic
institutions.

Specially trained outreach workers could be useful in making the
connection between "ethnic" seniors and the service-delivery
systems, in their own language. Community funding support is
already being made available in certain cases to ethnic
communities to provide their own services and programs:

The Japanese community in Vancouver has developed its own
Meals on Wheels program to provide familiar food to seniors who
are confined to their homes or who are in hospitals or nursing
homes;

The Ukrainian Canadian Social Services in Edmonton has
established the Beta Project, where volunteers visit Ukrainians
living in senior citizens' homes. Services include readings
from Ukrainian literature, celebration of traditional holidays,
and folk art activities;

In Vancouver's Chinatown, a Senior Power program has been
established. Seniors know they are performing a useful function
as they escort elementary school children to and from school
each day;

The Armenian community in Edmonton is compiling information
on the history of Armenian immigrants in Alberta. They hope to
put this information into a book that will give the seniors a
chance to tell their story of when and why they came to
Alberta, and what their lives were like.

Similar programs could be established for South Asian seniors.

Conclusion

The number of elderly people in the Indo-Canadian community is not
yet large enough to create a sense of urgency. However, this
community, including its older members, must be prepared to call
upon its own resources as well as to use government programs to
meet the needs of older Indo-Canadians. We need to start now to
identify these needs and to find solutions that are well-suited to
our cultural values and expectations. We need to have a retirement
community for Indo-Canadian seniors, not as a ghetto but because,
with increasing age human nature often yearns for homogeneity and
familiarity. Familiar foods, faces, sounds, and surroundings
become of paramount importance. As we work with our seniors to
improve the quality of their lives today, the whole community will
be better prepared for the challenges that will face us
tomorrow.

Kappu Desai is a biochemist, a community leader, and a
member of the National Advisory Council on Aging.